A rubric for evaluating the support of industry awards for education outcomes within Technical and Vocational Education (TVET)

This study presents a rubric for evaluating industry-organised award ceremonies and how they contribute to the experience and outcomes of students within a Technical and Vocational Education (TVET) environment. The aim is to support the design of more effective industry awards and also to inspire greater participation and acceptance within formal education.

Industry awards can be considered a form of assessment that measures vocational skills and can be associated with the pedagogic strategies of problem-based learning, portfolio development and formative assessment (Yusop et al., 2022). They also follow an equivalent process as formal qualifications, as can be observed in Fig 1. (Mukhtar and Ahmad, 2015 p121).

Additionally, this practice overcomes the inherent disconnect from real-world practice experienced in the classroom and supports students' ability to relate theory to practice in the workplace. Ultimately, awards, when optimally implemented, can support student outcomes by offering unique assessments that prioritize knowledge mastery, intellectual capital development, a progressive attitude culture, and the cultivation of high virtue, ethics, and moral values.

Despite the obvious value especially within a TVET programme, awards are broadly considered to be extra-curricular and optional. This is also observed within academic literature where few, if any papers have been published that mention the contribution of awards to higher education or employability. There is an opportunity to address this by providing a rubric to assist organisers and faculty in jointly bridging the gap from practice to theory.

The Incongruent Podcast:
Part 1: And the winner is.... an inquiry into industry awards and their role in higher education.
(https://www.buzzsprout.com/993424/13013305)

Part 2: Exploring Student Satisfaction in Award Programs: A Deep Dive into Measurements, Models, and Impact. (https://www.buzzsprout.com/993424/13714355)